The Good Oak

Five: Borzt

five I borzt I knew stealing the sheep back was a bad idea from the nrst, and I told Aitatxi so. "Dad wouldn't like this," I said as he turned onto Highway 60. "Aita, he no here," Aitatxi said. "He's going to be mad." "Then he no should sell sheeps." Aitatxi had found out that Dad sold the sheep to the Outwest Dude Ranch in Wickenburg, thirty miles north of Phoenix. I didn't know what a bunch of make-believe cowboys would want with sheep. They couldn't ride them, or at least not very far. 1'd tried that. Riding a sheep was like being on a barrel wrapped in a loose rug. Sooner rather than later you ended up facedown in the dirt. Maybe they were going to have a giant barbecue and eat the sheep. Oh, man, Aitatxi would be hopping like the earth was on nre if they did that. Out my window, I watched as we passed the white wall that separated Sun City from the rest of Phoenix. A billJ4 board said: RETIREMENT LIVING WITHOUT THE KIDS. Behind the wall, sun reflected off the red tile roofs of houses lined up in circles like the rings of a giant tree. The sudden ending of the wall made me blink as white brick was replaced by gray dirt. The wall curved away into the distance; scraped and leveled land lay outside it. Nothing grew there. A dust devil sprang up. It twisted into the air for a few seconds before falling back to the ground. Mter a while, the gray dirt turned to brown desert. Adobe houses with sagging flat roofs appeared along the road. There were signs in front of the houses with the word ANTIQUES. The houses' yards were crowded with rusting buckets and pieces of machinery and broken furniture. In the window of one of the houses a lady wearing an Indian headdress watched us pass. "Today night, we go into pens," Aitatxi said. "Atarrabi and Mikelats, they get sheeps out." "That's your plan?" I said. "Those stupid dogs won't even stay awake long enough to get one sheep." "You no get in way of txakurrak - dogs." "Forget the dogs. We're going to end up in jail," I said. Then I repeated the words my father said to me every time I got into trouble at school: "You're too old to be doing this." Aitatxi didn't say anything for a moment. And in that moment day turned to night. Shadows nlled the pickup's cab. They crawled over Aitatxi's face. His eyes grew large and his face blurred into Oxea's. I pushed my back up against the passenger door. "They're only sheep," I heard myself whisper. Then Aitatxi smiled and became himself again. He looked over at me and said, "Sure, no, you right, we go home." I relaxed. "I think that would be best." 35 Only Aitatxi didn't slow down the pickup or start to turn around. "Ba," Aitatxi said. "You need go a school tomorrow day. See nice friends." A buzzing nlled my head at the thought of returning to Ms. Helm's class. I pictured the looks the other kids would give me with Rich saying stuff like "You never told me you came from Eden, Mathieu. So what's that Eve babe like?" "You be sure say hello a polita teacher for Aitatxi," he said. "Howyou say about legs again?" "How long will this sheep thing take?" I said. "With Oxea, we climb mountain a etxola-sheep camp in three day." Nobody at school knew about Oxea's dying. Not yet, anyway . But it would probably be in the newspaper tomorrow. None of my friends even knew I had an oxea, and now theyand everybody in Phoenix-were going to read all about him and how he ... well, it was none of their business. Oxea belonged to me and my family, and I didn't feel like sharing him with anyone else. Only there was nothing I could do about it, except maybe not be there. Aitatxi's sheep drive would get me through the week. And, if I was lucky, while I was gone the Phoenix Suns would make the play-offs, or better yet the school would burn down and Rich and the other kids would forget all about me and Eden...